Pink Floyd's Eleventh Studio Album
by Makeste
Summary: Yamamoto has a run-in with an old friend.


**Disclaimer: **I do not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn! or any of its characters, settings, or load-bearing structures.

**Author's Notes: **Spoilers up to chapter 200 of the manga (as in, this probably won't make sense if you haven't read that far). Slight possibility of crack. *whistles*

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**Pink Floyd's Eleventh Studio Album**

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"Will you _stop_ that?"

Yamamoto blinks. "Huh?"

"That's the fifth time you've stopped to look over your damned shoulder," Gokudera says in a tone suggesting that the act is deeply offensive to him. "Cut it out! You're making me feel fucking paranoid!"

"Ha ha! Sorry," Yamamoto apologizes, and Gokudera shakes his head derisively.

"Moron."

But as they continue on their way to Tsuna's house, Yamamoto has to consciously battle the urge to look behind him yet again. Strange; he doesn't know why the feeling is there or what it means, but all day long he's had the peculiar sense that someone—something?—is watching him.

He forces himself to shake it off. He's probably just being silly.

* * *

His eyes snap open in the middle of the night, hand groping for the shinai beside his bed before he's even aware of it.

Then he wakes up fully and pauses, sitting up and taking a look around. Everything looks normal, sounds normal. What was it that woke him up?

It's curious, but it doesn't seem like anything's wrong, so after a few moments he sets the shinai back down again. But just when he's about to try and go back to sleep, the room suddenly grows darker, and his pulse quickens.

Then the moonlight shines back in again, and he's out of his bed, racing to the window, trying to determine the source of the shadow that just passed. Sliding the window open, he reaches back to grab the wooden sword again, ready to transform it at any second. He sticks his head out (and maybe that's a little dumb, but he's not exactly in a position to be thinking clearly), looking around, his instincts fired up, ready to fight if need be.

But again, there's nothing but the sounds of cicadas whispering in the night. Nothing else. If there ever was a threat—if it wasn't all just in his head—it's long gone.

At last, he pulls his head back out of the cool night air and closes the window once more. Settling back in under his covers, he folds his arms behind his head and stares at the ceiling, as bewildered as he's ever been in his life.

A minute later, he reaches over, picks up the shinai, and tucks it under the sheets beside him. Just in case.

* * *

"Sorry, but may I be excused for a minute?"

The teacher looks a little surprised, but after a moment, nods. "Very well."

Yamamoto slides from his desk and hurries to the classroom door, not missing the confused glances Tsuna and Gokudera shoot each other as he passes, but giving no further explanation for now. As soon as he closes the door behind him, he makes a beeline down the hall toward the stairs. It's there—he _knows_ it's there. There was no mistaking that shadow this time, even if no one else seems to have noticed.

As he rounds the bend in the staircase, he sees it again—a dark silhouette just flitting out of sight at the bottom of the next flight of steps. Giving chase, Yamamoto pauses only long enough to liberate a mop from a janitor's cart, holding the makeshift weapon as best as he can (though he really wishes he had time to run and get the shinai from his locker).

He spots the shadow darting around another corner, and follows down the last flight of steps and out into the schoolyard. He glances frantically in every direction, his grip tightening on the handle of the mop. It must be here somewhere… it _must_ be—

"Yamamoto!"

He whirls around, mop raised, ready to swing at the assailant like it's the championship game—

—and just barely stops himself in time to avoid giving Tsuna a concussion.

"What the _fuck_ do you think you're doing?" Gokudera practically screams as he runs up behind Tsuna. Yamamoto blinks.

"Y-Yamamoto? Are you all right?" Tsuna asks, looking just this shy of terrified.

With a murderous glare, Gokudera wrenches the mop out of Yamamoto's hand and seems to just barely restrain himself from beating in Yamamoto's head with it. "Are you a fucking lunatic?? You almost hit the Tenth!"

"S… sorry," Yamamoto manages to say, a little horrified at the thought himself.

"What the hell were you doing out here?"

"I was… I thought I saw…"

Remembering the fleeing shadow, Yamamoto turns around again, looking desperately for any sign of it.

"Saw what?" questions Tsuna, glancing around himself.

But it's no use; whatever it is, it's managed to escape once again. Cursing inwardly, Yamamoto forces himself to smile as he turns back to the others.

"…Nothing. I guess I just got excited for a moment." He puts his hands up in apology, trying to act as though nothing is wrong.

The other two don't quite look convinced.

* * *

_Enough of this_, Yamamoto tells himself firmly that night after baseball practice. _Gokudera's right, you're just being paranoid. And you almost hurt Tsuna_.

Having thus admonished himself, he exits the school and starts heading home. It's a particularly nice day, the early summer heat just starting to fade as the beginnings of twilight set in. The pleasant evening wind helps to further set his mind at ease. _Maybe it'll rain tonight_, he thinks with a grin.

He rounds the corner, and that's when he smacks into the wall.

He goes down hard, the somehow-familiar impact reverberating through his bones. The shadow looms closer; he looks up, dazed, and gapes in stunned recognition.

Towering imposingly before him, the wall is somehow more menacing than ever before, its sleek black surface reflecting, like a mirror, the shocked gaze of the longtime rival who once again lies crumpled before it.

As Yamamoto stares in horror, the wall gazes back dispassionately, its rectangular outline leering at him as if to say, _Hello again. Did you miss me?_

And as the grim hexahedron begins to glide forward, all Yamamoto can think is: _It was fate_.

Then onyx stone fills his vision, and he knows no more.

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**The End**

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...I regret nothing.


End file.
